BF 









ANNIE RIX MILITZ 




Class 
Book. 



Copyright N?_ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



Writings be Aroti* Six iltlii? 



Spiritual Housekeeping . . $ .50 
Primary Lessons in Christian Liv- 
ing and Healing . . .1.00 
Sermon on the Mount . . .50 
Wonderful Wishers of Wishing 
Well .... 



All Things Are Possible . 
None of These Things Move Me 
I Am Myself . 



(ttnnmttratum in X\\t luBg ©ft 



5fam fork 

2ttp Abflnlut* JJreoa 

1910 



.-Mb 32s 



Copyright, 1910, by A. R. Milits 



Ube Urow press 
"Hew BJorfe 



©«427ffa M 



INTRODUCTION 

TT has been claimed by certain occult teachers that one cannot 
advance in spiritual life so long as one is in business or in 
any way engaged in material affairs. This is one of those half 
truths that so often discourage the young student and cause him 
to take fanatical steps or utterly abandon the pursuit of the spir- 
itual life through believing it is not for him. 

It is true that one who is given over to money-getting or men- 
tally enslaved to drudgery cannot expect to attain heavenly 
heights. Indeed, he is not seeking such attainment. But the 
one who does desire it should realize that he can begin just where 
he is, and can make his work a mighty means of advancement, 
turning it from being a hindrance into a stepping-stone. His 
mind must be set right regarding his work until all sense of its 
burden and materiality has passed away, and those features in it 
that are untrue, dishonest, and unworthy of a man of God have 
been redeemed. 

Man decides the nature of work, making it noble or degrading 
according to his attitude in it and toward it. Any work that is 
3 



Spiritual Housekeeping 

for the good of humanity, even the most menial, can be elevated 
by the workman who serves the divine One in all. 

The following talks upon housework and its meaning in the 
spiritual life apply to all manner of work. The topic, House- 
keeping, is chosen to make the application less abstract, but those 
who can read between the lines can see themselves all house- 
keepers, men as well as women; the women of leisure as well as 
. the busy housewives, all keepers of the temple of God. Your body 
is your house; your mentality is your garden; your character is 
your earth. All these are subject to your spirit, the Master of the 
House. 

In this temple-house of God your thoughts and feelings as well 
as the members of your body can hold devotional services daily 
by doing all things for the Lord only. There is no piece of work 
but what may be a sacrament and an opportunity for bringing 
forward the high and holy One who is on His way proving Him- 
self All in All. 

As this study upon concentration is presented under the head- 
ings of the days of the week a word as to the significance of this 
division of time will not be amiss. 

The formation of the seven-day week, while having a certain 
natural cause in the changing phases of the moon f these liavebeen 
4 



Spiritual Housekeeping 

arbitrarily numbered four, whereas there could be as many phases 
as a compass has points), is essentially religious, and symbolizes 
a perfect round of devotion. Among the pagans the days were 
consecrated to the gods of the seven planets: Sun, Moon, Mars, 
Jupiter, Mercury, Venus, and Saturn, but among the Israelites, 
the God-illumined people, they were devoted to the One. 

It is ancient teaching that there are seven aspects of Deity 
ftlte seven spirits or angels J and that Man, as the image of God, 
is a sevenfold being. The Bible teems with symbols of seven in 
connection with God, from the seven days of Genesis to the seven 
angels of Revelation. 

When the seer who gave us the account of creation in Genesis 
described his vision he presented the different manifestations or 
aspects of God's presence in the terms of days of the week. These 
are given as sequential stages, but spiritual perception reveals 
God as ever creating or manifesting Himself in all His aspects 
simultaneously, as seven rays of light are flashed at once from 
a fixed star. The old belief that God created a world in a week 
and then abandoned it to its fate, as a clockmaker might do with 
a clock, is passing away, and spiritual reasoning portrays the 
omnipresent changeless God as ever manifesting His wholeness 
throughout eternity. 

5 



Spiritual Housekeeping 

Each day of the seven is a period of illumination from and 
upon one of the aspects of our divinity. Therefore to fill a week 
with right meditation is to have a rounded period of enlighten- 
ment concerning one's own true Being . 

For this reason a week of concentration practices is described. 
Continuation in these practices must eventually reveal the Su- 
preme Master enthroned within the devotee, who, when acknowl- 
edged and obeyed will keep the mind poised and strong in perfect 
power of concentration without effort and finally without prac- 
tice. 



Annie Rix Militz. 



Sierra Madre, California. 
January, iqio. 



SPIRITUAL HOUSEKEEPING 



THE FIRST DAY 

Sunday— *Rest Day 

^•fc^HIS is the day of beginnings, wherein we take 
■ *\ a fresh start. " Old things are passed away; 
^^^^ behold, I make all things new." It is the res- 
urrection day, this Sabbath of the Christians, 
and it was chosen to take the place of the old Jewish 
Sabbath for the benefit of the early Christian con- 
verts, who still clung to the idea that one day must be 
esteemed especially holy, and could not receive the 
liberty of the Christ, who knows all days to be alike 
holy. 

The seventh day was the Sabbath of the old dispen- 
sation; the first day is the Sabbath of the new. This 
day will continue to be set apart so long as men feel work 
to be a burden and a curse, and so long as men work for 
7 



SPIRITUAL 

something and some one else besides the ideal. But to 
him who has found the truth that work is joy, and activ- 
ity which blesses others is ever divine, there is no need of 
a special day of rest, for he rests in working, never know- 
ing weariness or bondage. 

"The sabbath was made for man, and not man for 
the sabbath " (Mark ii, 27), and was intended from the 
first to be a reminder to man that " there remaineth a 
rest for him," a final attainment of perpetual rest in the 
midst of, and one with, ceaseless activity— the divine 
paradox, identity of rest and activity. 

The spiritual quality for which each day stands per- 
meates and fills all the other days in the well-ordered, 
harmonious life. The Sunday is the day of serenity, still- 
ness, poise, repose, and these qualities in truth over- 
shadow and bless all the week days. 

Sunday's word is Peace. " Thou wilt keep him in 
perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, because he 
trusteth in thee " (Is. xxvi, 3). " For thus saith the 
Lord God, the Holy One of Israel : In returning and rest 
shall ye be saved; in quietness and confidence is your 
strength " (Is. xxx, 15). 

Early Sunday morning let us fill our hearts with 
meditation upon Peace, and let the thought run all 
through our week that all our activities shall begin with 
8 



HO USEKEEPING 

Peace. The first practice of right concentration is the 
stilling of the mind. The human mentality is like a 
mirror whose reflections can be perfect only as the mir- 
ror is still; or like a lake, which must be smooth and still, 
without a ripple, in order to reflect the objects upon its 
surface. "*** — "" 

Sabbath stillness should begin every day— not plan- 
ning and hurrying with sense of so much to do and so 
little time to do it in. Five minutes with this Truth of 
God, that all things are now done and finished in the 
divine Mind ; that there is nothing to do, no one to set 
right, no problems to solve, will work like a charm upon 
your faculties, and, instead of being tired even when you 
begin your day, everything will work so smoothly, fairly 
" doing themselves," that when evening comes you will 
be just as fresh as you were in the morning, and you will 
lay your head upon your pillow like a baby, which has 
no sense of weariness, but only readiness for refreshing 



Let us remember : 

Every day is a fresh beginning, 
Every morn is the world made new. 

The great Creator of all that really is ever creates 
and manifests true Being, which is bright and fresh and 
9 



SPIRITUAL 

new; nothing is stale or dull in God's world. This 
source of your originality, invention, and skill is your 
divinity. " All things were made by him ; and without 
him was not anything made that was made" (John 

i,3). 

"And God saw everything that he had made, and 
behold, it was very good " (Gen. i, 31). From these 
statements of Scripture we logically conclude that 
that which is not good is not really made— all that 
offends, the corrupt, the decaying, the ugly and the 
inharmonious are outside the realm of the true (Matt, 
xiii, 41). 

The newness of God's kingdom we indicate by array- 
ing ourselves in new, fresh garments on Sunday, and 
while we don these our silent prayer can be worded, 
"Behold! I make all things new." New garments 
typify new minds, new hearts, new bodies. The New 
Man of the resurrection is the theme for concentration 
on the First Day of this holy week— the new creature 
whose formation or regeneration is not with striving and 
hard work, but in peace and by inspiration. 

Sunday is the day of light and brightness, as the name 
signifies. Sabbaths are a thing of the past, " an abomi- 
nation unto me; . . . even the solemn meetings" 
(Is.i,i3). 

10 



HOUSEKEEPING 

Each day of the week is named after a god who it 
was believed presided over a planet. Sunday is the day 
of the sun, Monday, the day of the moon, Saturday, the 
day of Saturn. In our meditations we will sail our men- 
tal ships upon the current of these ancient beliefs, for 
even our work of to-day is arranged along the lines of 
these pagan devotions. And we will take these symbols 
out of the darkness and superstition of paganism into the 
light of truth. Thus, the sun stands for the one God, 
the universal Good, who is the real light of the world. 
11 Ye are the light of the world," the sun of righteousness 
with healing in its beams. 

Sunday's work is like the shining of the sun, which 
fructifies and blesses by simply being, without strife or 
effort. So the inspiration and the joy of truth redeem 
us from the curse associated with work, and all we do is 
accomplished by the divine One within us. " My Father 
worketh hitherto, and I work." 

" Sanctify my Sabbaths." We fulfill the spirit of the 
fourth commandment by making every day holy unto 
the Lord, knowing it is lawful to do good every day, and 
that all days are the Lord's Day. Like yeast in the flour, 
so shall the ideal day of union between rest and work 
leaven all the days. Already here is a perpetual Sab- 
bath observed the world around, for : 



SPIRITUAL 

Christians worship God on Sunday, 
Grecian zealots hallow Monday, 
Tuesday, Persians spend in prayer, 
Assyrians, Wednesday revere. 
Egyptians, Thursday ; Friday, Turks, 
On Saturday, no Hebrew works. 

But as the true worshipers worship God in Spirit and 
in truth every day of the week so the First Day simply 
becomes a time to express that worship in a certain way, 
the Second Day in another way, and so on through the 
Sacred Seven. 

The true holy day is a holiday, a time for recreation, 
a time to realize the innocence of pleasure, and to know 
that all real enjoyment is spiritual. Knowledge of Truth 
enters us into the Spirit of work and play alike, and then 
whatever we do glorifies God and honors man. It is 
said that Jesus, one day, seeing a man working on the 
Sabbath, said to him, " Man, if thou knowest what thou 
doest, blessed art thou. But if thou knowest not what 
thou doest, cursed art thou, and a transgressor of the 
law." Paul expresses somewhat of the same idea, 
" Happy is he who condemneth not himself in that thing 
which he alloweth " (Rom. xiv, 22). 

Throughout Sunday let your practice of concentration 
be serenity, oneness of mind; let a radiance of peace 



HOUSEKEEPING 

fill your aura. Excitable natures often find it difficult to 
concentrate; such should consciously have a Sabbath- 
calm some part of every day. 

'A lady who was all wrought up one day in the midst 
of moving out of a house while some one else was mov- 
ing in at the same time, and whose goods must be 
removed within a short space of time, recognized that 
she had reached the place where distraction and confu- 
sion were holding carnival in her mentality, and delib- 
erately she dropped everything, and calmly sat down in 
the midst of the confusion, and for five minutes withdrew 
her mind utterly from her surroundings, turning to the 
Spirit with the words, " Thou wilt keep him in perfect 
peace whose mind is stayed on thee." The rest and re- 
cuperation of those five minutes were beyond description. 
She arose a new woman, with fresh powers, and her 
whole work was transformed. 

You whose muscles become tense, whose nerves get 
on edge, relax often, let go, remember your divine Being, 
as you silently and slowly breathe these words : " The 
serene, calm, restful, trustful Self now accomplishes 
everything in and through me perfectly and without 
effort." 

Look not into the future, dwell not upon the past. 
The present is the only time with Spirit. Train your 
13 



SPIRITUAL HOUSEKEEPING 

thoughts to remain in the present and not stand a-tiptoe 
peering into the future, and hopping about from one 
wornout subject to another. Then your plans will come 
through your prophetic sense, then your reviews will have 
a profitable bearing upon the present. Dignity and 
majesty mark the nature whose power of concentration 
is perfect. Get withal childlike and simple, with a joy 
that gives no reason for being— plasticity and stability 
united. 

Let the endless sabbath of your soul baptize your 
whole being and give a holy gladness to every day of the 
year. 



H 



m 



THE SECOND DAY 

Monday— Freedom Day 

'ONDAY is the day of the moon, shown in the 
derivation of the word not only in the English 
language, but also in the French, Landi, and 
the German, Montag. It therefore belongs to 
the traditions of our ancestors that this day, being de- 
voted to the goddess who presided over the moon and 
thence over the waters of the earth, is the lucky day 
upon which to engage in the employments associated 
with water. Hence, Monday, the world around, is 
" wash day." It is a scientific fact that the waters of the 
great oceans are governed by the moon, as demon- 
strated in the tides, and the alchemists held that the very 
moisture of the human body came under its influence. 

And now we come to the significance of water, and 
to that of which we can be reminded every Monday in 
our concentration practice. 

Water symbolizes the great negative power of the 
Spirit, the power of annulling and destroying evil. 
Water has had an important part in the rites of all the 
is 



SPIRITUAL 

great religions, as witness the baptisms, holy water, and 
feet-washings of the Christians, the lustrations of the 
Essenes, the sacred baths of the Hindus, the purifica- 
tion waters of the Hebrews. 

Water stands for the loosening, cleansing, and free- 
ing power of Truth. The denials of Christian meta- 
physics have this effect, and mental washing is accom- 
plished by the free use of the word of denial. 

The affirmations of Truth, such as " God the Good 
is all there is," and " I am one with God, therefore I am 
spiritual and immortal, pure and perfect Being," and 
"All the presence and power there is is Health, Love, 
Life, Wisdom, Peace, and Prosperity," have the effect of 
establishing and confirming our consciousness in and of 
Truth. But sometimes false beliefs are in the way, and 
it is needful that they be removed in order to make room 
for the grand affirmations of Spirit. 

An old untrue supposition about life is like an old 
building that stands upon the ground where we desire to 
construct a new one. To attempt to realize these new 
true statements of life while still clinging to our old 
views is like trying to erect a new building over the old. 
Certain students of Truth have attempted this, and then 
they wonder why their affirmations do not heal and bring 
them their desires. 

16 



HOUSEKEEPING 

Let us learn to clear out the old accumulations of false 
thoughts by the right use of denials. Good judgment 
must be exercised with the words of denial, just as the 
good laundress has common sense in the use of water. 
Some denial statements are strong, such as " There is no 
evil," " There is no personality," " There is no matter," 
and the effect is often quick, and there also seems a 
great stir and dust, and the appearance for the time being 
is that evil is more real than ever, selfishness is rife, and 
materiality rampant. So it is when an old structure is 
being torn down; if quick and strong ways and means 
are used the ground, covered with debris, looks hopeless 
except to the builder. "And they shall gather out of 
his kingdom all things that offend," said that Master- 
Builder, Jesus the Christ. 

Certain denials are tempered in their expression, 
such as " There is no reality in evil," and " sin has no 
real power"; " nothing is material, all is mind"; "God 
never made disease, therefore it is not an entity " ; " in 
heaven there is no sorrow, no pain, no poverty, and 
heaven is here." And the wise practitioner will apply 
them to the states of mind where the more drastic forms 
might be antagonizing. The skillful housewife does not 
pour boiling water upon the flannel garments, nor use 
strong soaps with delicate fabrics. 
*7 



SPIRITUAL 

The correspondence between water and the great 
negative announcements of Truth is perfect. The words 
which describe water are negative : pure water is color- 
less, odorless, tasteless. Like the moon her patroness, 
water is a good reflector— a mirror is a good reflector 
when it is nothing of itself. The negative mentality— 
called the mortal or carnal mind— is at its best when, 
like pure, still water, it is a clear reflector of the ideas 
held over it. Herein, according to the Hindu teaching 
of Yoga, is a key to the power of perfect concentration. 
The turbid, restless mentality must become clear and 
quiet, like the stormy waves of Galilee when calmed by 
the Master's command, " Peace! be still." 

The virgin Diana was the Greek goddess of the moon, 
pure, chaste, and cold. The life of denial makes the 
ascetic. The true Christian is not an ascetic only, but, 
while all pure within, she is clothed with the warm fructi- 
fying Sun, putting the Moon-nature (ascetic and psychic) 
under her feet, "a great wonder in heaven; a woman 
clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet " 
(Rev. xii, i). The same truth is embodied in the symbol- 
ism of the " wedding at Cana of Galilee " (John ii, i-ii). 
When the Christ is an invited guest at the true wedding 
of the positive and negative elements of our nature He 
turns the cold, sterile waters of our old faith, found in 
18 



HOUSEKEEPING 

the purification jars of the old religion, into the warm, 
exhilarating wine of the Spirit which we drink anew with 
the Christ in the kingdom of heaven within. All our life 
can be this marriage feast, where we are making the 
union between the positive good of our spiritual Being 
and the negative good of our earthly experiences. The 
Christ can be our perpetual guest, ever changing the 
water of our barren commonplace work into the wine of 
ecstatic communion with God. Let us know no drudgery, 
nothing common or unclean. 

Teach me, my God and King, 

In all things Thee to see, 
And what I do in anything 

To do it as for Thee. 

All may of Thee partake, 

Nothing can be so mean 
Which with this tincture (for Thy sake) 

Will not grow bright and clean. 

A servant with this clause 

Makes drudgery divine ; 
Who sweeps a room, as for Thy laws, 

Makes that and the action fine. 

— George Herbert. 

Thus let us approach all the uses of water. We may 
not all serve by washing clothes, but we are using water 



SPIRITUAL 

in multifold other ways, washing dishes, watering 
plants, giving drink to animals, bathing the children or 
ourselves, and so forth. 

The thought to associate with water is Freedom. This 
is the word for Monday. 

Early in the morning your devotions can begin with 
your bath. Then you can realize the work the Spirit 
is doing for you in cleansing and freeing you from the 
thoughts and feelings that distract and interfere with 
your peace and power of concentration. At this time 
you can silently voice your desires for freedom as al- 
ready accomplished in the divine Mind : 

" The Spirit now sets me free from all that binds 
and clogs; I am cleansed from every impure suggestion; 
the Truth loosens from me every burden; I am free 
from selfishness; I am free from jealousy, bitterness, 
and so forth." 

Full freedom springs from within. It is the freedom 
that gives freedom to others. Therefore, what we declare 
and wish for ourselves let us seek to make manifest for 
others. 

When Jesus washed the feet of his disciples he indi- 
cated the power he was exercising through his silent 
word. He followed the act with the definite statement 
as to what was the real cleansing power. 

20 



HOUSEKEEPING 

" Now are ye clean through the words which I have 
spoken unto you." 

The Spiritual householder and housekeeper fulfills a 
like office for all that come under her charge or even 
into her mind— her family is the whole race —silently 
speaking the cleansing word as she goes about her daily 
work. 

As the clothes are gathered together to be washed 
realize that garments stand for the thoughts, words, 
ideas that clothe the I Am. We read in Scripture of the 
garments of praise, of righteousness, of " purple and 
fine linen," signifying external power and the outer form 
of purity. 

Again, the clothing can mean to us character, traits, 
habits; some fine, some strong, some durable — every 
garment fit to wear has some virtue in it that can be 
applied to the inner nature. 

The family wash typifies the process of freeing the 
family from false beliefs, and as the concentrated worker 
applies herself she can realize that it is the Spirit that 
is doing this work, and it is not a mere matter of muscle 
and physical hard work. Remember to let God work 
through you, and mark the new features that will come 
into your work, the skill, the ease, the good judgment 
with which you will uplift what has been a laborious task. 



SPIRITUAL 

We are now redeeming " blue Monday," that state of 
exhaustion, depression, and gloom which so often fol- 
lowed a Sunday in which the clergyman of the old school 
made such an intellectual effort that " brain-fag " laid 
him low, or he gave sermons which were such a strain 
upon his feelings (his inspiration being so largely through 
his psychic senses and the whole sustained by a strenu- 
ous working of human will) that depletion almost to 
nervous prostration followed, and all his family were 
covered and saturated with his heavy and exhausted 
aura. The maids reflected the heads of the household 
with irritated and impatient feelings, and with words 
that have given wash-day a bad reputation, even in 
such old folk-songs as 

The little kittens on the hearth 

They dare not even play, 
For it's up with a thump and many a bump 

All on a washing-day. 
It's scold, scold, it's thump, thump, 

It 's scold, scold away 
And not a bit of comfort here, 

All on a washing-day. 

To such mentalities the word " freedom " applied to 
wash-day seems veritable irony. Yet here is rich soil 
in which to plant our seed of freedom-thought. Duty- 



HOUSEKEEPING 

sense makes bondage —doing things because one is 
duty-bound. Let us bring forth the love-thought, and 
dismiss forever that false cause, duty. You are free 
Spirit, and there is a deep, true love-reason back of all 
that you do. Find it. When we see that there is some- \ 
thing within us that loves to serve, and that work is best ) 
done by inspiration, not effort, then we also find an 
original and initiative Spirit with us, and all manner of 
devices and labor-saving ways and means spring up in 
our minds. So labor grows light in every Way, and the 
blueness of Monday scintillates with starry hopes, and 
merry songs and tripping steps make a holiday of what 
was once a hard labor day. The same joy and freedom 
that marks the work of the happy laundress can be ours, 
and all the sting and weariness pass away. 

Let me say, right here, to the suggestion that one 
might become fixed in material work by being content 
with it that it is a fact of observation that in almost every 
instance where rebellion has ceased because of principle, 
and where work which chafed has become nothing to 
one, it passes utterly out of one's experience and never 
enters again except it be by one's deliberate choice. 

And now, dear Martha of the family, let Mary's good 
part enter into your work. Wash away the family sins 
by the power of the Christ-life working through you. 
23 



SPIRITUAL HOUSEKEEPING 

" Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as 
snow " (Is. i, 18). But for the most part the family sins 
are not the deep-dyed ones, but the errors are worriment 
and fear, tempers, common selfishness, quarreling, 
unkind teasing, tardiness, disobedience, forgetfulness — 
bad habits which demand daily correcting until the 
higher Self is invoked and trusted. Each garment that 
is handled can remind one of a word of Truth to be 
spoken for its owner. As you wash little Johnny's stock- 
ings you will see how the Spirit is working within him to 
give the love of being helpful and thoughtful for others ; 
as you wash little Mary's apron, that habit of careless- 
ness and untidiness will receive its cleansing and come 
forth the clean garment of a spontaneous orderliness 
that will charm while yet years rest lightly upon her. 

Great can be the ministry of the household priest and 
savior if she will, like Mary, sit at the feet of Truth and 
remember that whatever she gives and does for anyone 
in the name of the Christ she gives and does to the 
Christ within herself —so entering and abiding perpetu- 
ally in the kingdom of heaven while here on the earth. 
" Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you 
free." " If the Son [the Truth] therefore shall make 
you free, ye shall be free indeed." 



24 



THE THIRD DAY 

Tuesday— The Lc<Je "Day 

M^t^SHE origin of the Anglo-Saxon name of the third 
a C\ day of the week is Tiwes, the fire god of our 
^^^^ Teutonic ancestors, the same as the war god 
of the Greeks and Romans, Mars, from whose 
name the French word for Tuesday is derived, that is, 
Mardi. 

In the olden time the god of fire was also the god of 
war, wrath, revenge, and destruction, and even to-day 
the astrologer enlarges upon the fighting, raging, stinging 
influences of the planet Mars, although he acknowledges 
there is a propitious, even beneficent, aspect of this star 
that is expressed as energy, refining power, skill, and 
zeal. 

Fire symbolizes Love. The Hebrews described their 
God as " a consuming fire " (Deut. iv, 24), and St. 
John said, " God is love " (I John iv, 8). 

The primitive concept of the divine passion was based 
upon the belief in the reality of both good and evil, 
therefore supreme Love implied and included extreme 
25 



SPIRITUAL 

hatred, and if aught opposed or disobeyed the God-love 
it then became God-wrath, which burned with equal in- 
tensity. And in the dark days of their disobedience and 
sin the children of Israel imaged only the fierce anger of 
their God, so suffering torment, disease, and defeat until 
Christ came, teaching a God of love in whom was no 
wrath at all. The destructive nature of fire portrays the 
former idea of holy Love, destroying all that is not like 
itself —selfishness, corruption, whatever is offensive and 
useless. This aspect of the God-love is called hell fire 
in the New Testament—" gehenna," from the garbage- 
burning outside the walls of the city, Jerusalem. Into this 
were cast certain of the refuse of the city, especially 
from the sacrificial animals, and also the dead bodies of 
criminals. 

All applications of fire by the spiritual householder 
can be compared to the workings of Love in the realm of 
appearances. Often we make holocausts of the things 
which we see should cease to cumber our earth, like old 
letters and relics. If there are associations of sadness, 
regrets, mourning and evil memories, then as the flames 
consume the pile let the heart breathe, " Thus love dis- 
sipates all memory of evil," recollecting that all the hap- 
piness connected with these is eternal and self -renewing, 
to be finally manifest with no mixture of sin or sorrow. 
26 



HO USEKEEPING 

Again, when the dust heap is burning the weeds from the 
garden, and other forms of rubbish, then our silent 
prayer can be of acknowledgment of the inner fire of 
God's love able to destroy each false trait of character, 
naming them specifically. 

Our pagan ancestors gave us this custom of devoting 
Tuesday to using the element that belonged to Mars, the 
god of that day. Let us devote it to the real God of all 
days, and let every use of fire be to us symbolic of the 
Spirit's work of love. 

Monday is wash day, Tuesday is ironing day. The 
clothes in drying have been bathed in sunshine and air, 
types of universal love and inspiration, and as they are 
gathered together and sorted the angel within whispers 
to us of its mission of harvesting (Matt, xiii, 38, 39), sepa- 
rating ^the tares from the wheat. 

Some garments are like conventional beliefs, all stiff 
with pride and self-assertiveness, and so needing the 
sprinkling of the gentle waters of humility, preparatory 
to the refining, polishing work of love to round the 
character. 

Asceticism, like a severe washing, leaves some natures 

dry and withered, others harsh and " scratchy " with 

criticism, and only a new baptism of meekness and a 

strong and skillful application of the smoothing iron of 

27 



SPIRITUAL 

love can make them comfortable to contact. " Thee 
must be dipped again," an old Quaker used to say to 
certain of his Christian brothers whose zeal was awry, 
" Thee must be dipped again! " 

The flatiron stands for the word of the Spirit, our 
silent voicing of Truth. As the iron presses and gives 
the shine, we can remember the power of love to har- 
monize and smooth the ways of the family. Some 
natures are happy and useful "rough-dry"; though 
blunt and outspoken, not given to conventionalities, 
they are clean-minded: and wise is the house mother 
who knows how to be content to have such natures about, 
not finding fault because they do not receive the polish 
of which other natures are capable. Then there are those 
whose positiveness in truth must be established because 
they seem limp and weak in their self-depreciation. As 
some stiffly starched garment is being ironed for them tell 
them of the courageous, strong self within them, able 
to go forward truly and wisely. But perhaps another may 
be too assertive, then the skillful flatiron of the Word can 
round the sharp corners and gently bring to mind the 
unobtrusive Christ-Self that is there. 

As the delicate and beautiful have their part in the 
harmonious home, and require skillful handling with 
intelligence, so there are temperaments, like filmy lace 
28 



HOUSEKEEPING 

and silken mesh, that seem impractical and sentimental, 
and yet have a deep, rich presence which, rightly appre- 
ciated, would be the lasting joy of the family. 

Sensitive children, like woollen garments, should re- 
ceive considerate treatment, not scorching by injudicious 
counsel or untimely and excessive punishment. 

Every nature and disposition in a family is repre- 
sented in the garments, and the consecrated worker, 
intent on carrying the good news, will find a message to 
deliver with every piece that is ironed. 

When building a fire, meditation upon the encour- 
agement of the interior nature is in place. Faith in 
human nature may seem cold and weak, and there 
needs to be a patient upbuilding and persistent lighting 
from the stores of love. Sometimes a fire will not burn 
because ashes lie accumulated, or the flues are choked 
with soot. So, unforgiveness, disappointed ambitions, 
unrequited loves seem to prevent inspiration and free 
realization, and as the ashes are removed let us perceive 
the power of the Spirit to remove all old thoughts that 
interfere with its currents of blessing, and to burn up 
the soot of materialism, doubts, procrastination, impurity 
and impatience. 

There are the lamps to be cleaned and filled. The 
Wise Virgins of the parable give us the clew to this work, 
39 



SPIRITUAL 

as it is in the Spirit. The oil for their lamps (Matt, xxv, 4) 
was kept in plentiful supply, so that when the bride- 
groom — the cosmic consciousness— came, though in a 
way and at a time unlooked for, they were ready. In 
the regeneration the illumination that we have within 
must receive daily reenforcement through prayer and 
communion with God, and the wick of our Soul's lamp 
must be kept free from old accretions of deadness and 
obtuseness through fasting from those material pursuits 
and sense-pleasures which make us forget God and fall 
into unlovely ways. As the globes are dusted or cleansed 
think of how they represent the body, which by right 
thought is pure and true, so that the light of the Soul is 
seen clearly shining through. 

Love keeps the furnace of God's dwelling house 
steady in its genial hospitality, tempered in its zeal, uni- 
versal in its comfort. The faithful heart that is janitor 
and stoker receives appreciation and honor from the 
mind that exalts all service to the holy place. 

All in the family contribute in some way to the love 
and harmony that warms and cheers, from the little lad 
who fills the wood box to the father, who, standing for 
the great Source of supply, pays the bills of gas and 
electricity, wood and coal. 

When the heat of the day, or of the stove, or of un- 
30 



HOUSEKEEPING 

usual work, seems to press upon one, then is the time to 
realize oneself the crucible in the magic laboratory of the 
Spirit where divine alchemy is redeeming some grossness 
and transmuting it into the fine gold of high and noble 
character. By calm cooperation with the heat it will 
never overpower you, but will find you vibrating evenly 
with it, not fainting but exhilarate, not exhausted but 
uplifted and inspired. This fierce influence has been 
called the anger of the Lord, but the wrath of God is 
passing into myth through the knowledge of the Love 
which is God; and our human anger, impatience, and 
irritability shall pass away through being lifted up into 
our God-self in such trying moments, so letting serenity 
reign supreme. 

The homely tasks of ironing day may be marked by 
an occasional burn upon the body while yet we are in 
the days of our spiritual greenness, and then comes an 
opportunity for one of those demonstrations which in 
its simplicity and completeness is such a convincing 
proof of the power of mind. Perceiving instantly : " The 
flesh feels nothing— it is the mind that feels, and I am 
Spirit, and cannot be burned," is to be delivered from the 
pain and blister, and to see wholeness and freedom in 
place of sores and scars. A student of Truth who kept 
a restaurant in San Diego, California, covered her hand 
31 



SPIRITUAL 

with scalding potato soup as she was moving a kettle of 
it, full to the brim, from one part of the range to another. 
The cook and waitresses who witnessed it were filled 
with horror, and in a panic began running for flour and 
oil to assuage the burning, but the lady calmly wiped the 
potato off her hand, refusing their remedies with a smile, 
saying, " I have better medicine within me." Standing 
still, and lifting her thoughts above her surroundings, she 
remembered, "I am Spirit, Mind, above all this, and 
nothing shall by any means harm me," and the burning 
sensation wholly passed away in a few minutes. Then 
she looked at her hand which had become a fiery red and 
saw that it was beginning to blister, and instantly she 
reasoned, " The same power that delivered me from the 
pain now keeps my hand from blistering," and all the 
redness and blistering disappeared. The afternoon of 
that same day she showed me the hand as white and 
whole as the other, while a waitress standing by said, 
" Yes, and I saw it, and it was wonderful! I am going 
to look into this new teaching." What a lesson was 
given there ! It could not soon be forgotten. 

"Love lightens labor" is an old maxim, and how 

true it is many a devotee to " New Thought " can testify. 

Weariness takes to itself wings. The hard task grows 

easy, the burden becomes light, as service to humanity 

32 



HOUSEKEEPING 

is seen to be service to God, and that everything is an 
opportunity to rise above the belief in slavery and bond- 
age to the flesh, and enter into the original, magical 
power of The Word, when to speak our wish is to see 
even things inanimate as well as animate respond with 
loving eagerness, hastening to do our pleasure, as the 
listening winds and waves joyed in quick obedience to 
the voice of the Master of Love who proved by a life of 
perfect service that " All power is given unto me in 
heaven and in earth." 



33 



THE FOURTH DAY 

X&ednesday — T&JUdom Day 

^l^fc^HE aspect of divinity which the middle day 
M C\ of the week presents is that of the power of 
^^^/ thought from the heights of intelligence called 
Wisdom, and the works which are the con- 
sequence of it. 

The word Wednesday is derived from Woden, the 
chief god of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors. His character, 
office, and functions were much the same as the Roman 
god, Mercury, called by the Greeks, Hermes, and by the 
Egyptians, Thoth, the deity that presided over thoughts, 
and the works of thought. The Latin races obtain their 
name for this day from the god Mercury, as in the 
French, Mercredi. 

To those who have been making the powers and na- 
ture of mind an ardent study Wednesday offers mani- 
fold suggestion about thought and its creative aspects. 
Under the old gods thought has a subtle history, and 
there are marvelous tales of the magical quickness of 
Mercury, this fleet message-bearer of the gods. 

34 



SPIRITUAL HOUSEKEEPING 

" Quick as a thought " is our superlative for speed. 
We call quicksilver mercury, because of its movement, 
and the first characteristic of the planet Mercury is its 
swift revolution about the sun. The mercurial tempera- 
ment among the people of the United States, bright, alert, 
sprightly, has been held by astrologers to be proof that 
this country is ruled beneficently by the planet Mercury. 

All these intimations we can, like Mary, " ponder in 
our hearts " while remembering the Christ that redeems 
these attributes from their old perversions for which 
Mercury was notorious among the gods, thieving, mis- 
chief-making, cunning, fickleness, and double-dealing. 

With winged head and feet, bearing the mystic rod, 
serpent-entwined, Mercury well symbolizes our myste- 
rious thinking power. But as the gods dwelt among the 
clouds and seldom favored mortals with their gifts, so 
thought has been, in the centuries past, relegated by the 
majority to the realm of fancy and untrained imagina- 
tion, and only as the one God, the Christ-Self, redeems 
the thinking faculty from its falsities and impositions can 
it be reinstated, and come to its original recognition as to 
place and power. Under the guidance of the Christ 
human thought is purified, lifted into the realm of divin- 
ity and made an instrument for the establishing of the 
Kingdom of Heaven on the earth. 

35 



SPIRITUAL 

As one with intelligence all expression is possible to 
the thought of man. Wisdom and creation are one in 
the divine realm, " The Lord by wisdom hath founded the 
earth" (Prov. iii, 19). " O Lord, how manifold are thy 
works ! in wisdom thou hast made them all " (Ps. civ, 24) . 
Because the supreme intention for man is that he shall 
create, like his Heavenly Father, the progressive races 
have been imbued with the idea of the necessity of edu- 
cation, the bringing forth of intelligence from within the 
child: 

" The Lord possessed me [Wisdom] in the beginning 
of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from 
everlasting, from the beginning or ever the earth was " 
(Prov. vii, 22, 23). 

The one appointed to instructing, whether school- 
teacher, guardian, or parent, should remember that all 
schooling is for the one end of bringing forth the God- 
man who walks in the footsteps of the Heavenly Father 
— " for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the 
Son likewise " (John v, 19). 

Children are our young thoughts —innocent, spirit- 
ual ideas in their incipiency, only needing faith in them 
and development through love in order to be the avenue 
along which can come every blessing to the earth. 

Wednesday is the day in which to meditate on the per-. 
36 



HOUSEKEEPING 

petual creation— one with supreme intelligence. It is 
sewing day, and new garments are planned and put to- 
gether. Other days also may be occupied with new cre- 
ations, and in great variety and diversity from the knit- 
ting of a sock to the building of a house, yet they can all 
be viewed in the same light with which we shall consider 
this day's sewing and mending. 

Inspiration can be in every piece of our creating 
through seeking to do it perfectly, for the Truth's sake, 
and because of the principle within one. 

Nothing makes the soul so pure, so religious, as the endeavor 
to create something perfect; for God is perfection, and whoever 
strives for it, strives for something Godlike.— Michel Angelo. 

" Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy 
might" (Eccles. ix, 10). Do it with spirit, not because 
you are obliged to do it, not for money or reward, not for 
praise, but for your Soul, for the kingdom of heaven's 
sake. The rich zeal and interest and integrity that you 
put into your work, when done for Truth's sake, give you 
a mighty impetus along the lines of your Soul's accom- 
plishments ; it is laying up heavenly treasures that many 
a praying recluse is missing in his sense of separation 
from humanity and indifference to their needs and the 
service he could render them. 
37 



SPIRITUAL 

11 But how can I be energetic and work with a vim when 
my body is so heavy and I am so easily exhausted and 
tired? " cries one who perhaps has bemoaned her " lazi- 
ness," and suffered acute mortification as her own use- 
lessness has been contrasted with others' activity. Re- 
member there are no " lazy " in God's kingdom. Laziness 
is a disease which is not healed by condemnation, and if 
we will never accuse another of laziness we will not come 
under that ban from our own thought or that of others. 
As one wisely and lovingly seeks a remedy for a disease, 
so laziness should receive our intelligent and successful 
healing. The rigor of enforced labor and stinging stripes 
of others' rebukes and our own self-contempt has only 
served to make the condition more evident, and it has 
brought confusion as to judgment in training an inchoate 
humanity out of its weakness into its strength. Tramps 
are the offspring of self -ignorance and rebellion against a 
false civilization. 

One's body is heavy and lax because the thoughts 
are material and sensual, or surcharged with anxiety 
and sense of the reality of evil, or, again, because one 
has dwelt in dreams and ideals which he has separated 
from the earth consciousness. Centering the mind in the 
God-Self in the midst of one and regarding every being 
in its spirituality and lovableness brings one to the bal- 
38 



HOUSEKEEPING 

anced place in the body so that the body is not felt at all, 
and your activity is as easy and effectual as the resilient 
step of the youthful foot. If that foot were twisted in its 
shoe its steps would be halting and painful, and the 
youth might seem lazy and abnormal until the mistake 
was corrected and comfort restored. So false views of 
life, whether they be selfish indulgence of passions, nega- 
tive wills, or merely not-knowing, twist the mentality, 
and a new view must be taken for relief. 

Our bodies are made " to fit "—let us keep a good cen- 
ter in them through perpetual cooperation with our God- 
Self. Meet the slightest suggestion of being tired with 
a spirited " I cannot grow weary in well doing," and 
never let the tempter suggest " overwork " or " thankless 
doing," or allow any other thought to crush you with a 
sense of injustice and wrong. 

Keep your faith in Good inviolate, it holds the key of 
perpetual renewal of joy and youthful interest. 

There is upon Life 's hand a magic ring, 
The ring of faith-in-good, Life 's gold of gold. 

Remove it not lest all Life 's charm take wing, 
Remove it not, lest straightway you behold 

Life 's cheek fall in and every earthly thing 
Grow unutterably old. 

One of the works of the Christ is to give " the gar- 
ment of praise for the spirit of heaviness " (Is. lxi, 3), to 
39 



SPIRITUAL 

raise up those who are cast down, the discouraged, self- 
depreciative natures, with words of loving interest and 
approval breathed silently while working upon their gar- 
ments, and audibly whenever the words can be fitly 
spoken. 

This is the day for mending, and the spiritual devotee 
can remember the power to heal misunderstanding as 
her needle joins the torn places. Mending the worn parts 
may stand for the mending of one's ways. As the needle 
weaves back and forth in darning the heart can cooperate 
with the Spirit in speaking the word that substitutes 
strong, positive, wholesome habits for the weakness that 
is appearing in the one to whom the garment belongs. 

The dressmaker who will bless her customer while 
fitting her, and send her messages of peace and goodness 
while sewing, will prove herself a minister of the gospel 
without stirring from her workrooms. How often the 
message of patience and thoughtfulness, of love and har- 
mony, of satisfaction and poise could transform a trouble- 
some patron into a happy cooperating sister in Truth ! 

Mechanical and uninteresting pieces of work be- 
come alive and even charming as we work blessed reali- 
zations of Truth into them. A lady who crochets much 
has learned to find sentences of Truth to take the place 
of empty counting. Having to make seven stitches very 
40 






HOUSEKEEPING 

often in a certain doily, she substituted "God the Good is 
all there is " for the old monotonous repetition, and it 
was a joy to her to write this line when sending her gift : 
"This work comes to you filled with words of Truth, 
and every stitch carries a blessing and a reminder of the 
almighty Good that is working in and through our lives." 
It is this human element of love and goodness that 
makes hand-wrought articles so much more valuable to 
the people of taste than the machine-made, soulless and 
without thought. Our quality is charging all that we 
contact whether we know it or not, and there are senses 
in mankind that discern these qualities, and characters 
can be read from the subtle emanations and vibrations of 
things that have been in intimate association with them. 
Letters have revealed the nature of their contents before 
they are opened, handkerchiefs have shown the secret 
thoughts of their owners. It was this knowledge that 
was with the woman who said, " If I may but touch his 
garment I shall be whole " (Matt, ix, 21). Truly it was 
her own receptive trust that opened her to the benefit of 
that touch, for no others of the crowd that pressed upon 
the Master were healed in that way. The virtue (good- 
ness) of Jesus Christ has gone forth into all the earth so 
that he who touches a stone in faith touches God. " Lift 
the stone, and there am I." 
41 



SPIRITUAL 

Everything in your world must be imbued with the 
best of you. The sewing machine you use can receive 
your calmness and patience as well as your skill and ex- 
pedition. You take out of the instruments you use what 
you put into them. Engineers often feel their locomo- 
tives to be like living, throbbing, sensitive creatures, re- 
quiring all the wise handling that must be given a high- 
mettled horse. Barbers tell of tired razors whose dull 
edge no honing can make keen. They lay them on the 
shelf for a week or two and their power is restored. 
Violins are loved and caressed and made to respond to 
such sweet harmonies for so long that their very frames 
become vibrant and sensitive to the most delicate touch 
and emotions of their loving masters. Flowers grow and 
flourish under a fond hand that gives something more 
than fertilizer or other material elements. Domestic 
animals thrive in the atmosphere of love that reveals 
something more in them than mere brute creations. 

The garment that is made over represents the re- 
forming powers of Truth working with the elements of 
a character or system at the place where it finds them, 
and bringing forth a fair work even from material judged 
hopeless. There is an enthusiasm with some men- 
talities in exercising their skill to make much out of 
little; it is akin to that of the magician who with the 
42 







HOUSEKEEPING 

wand of his word can bring into appearance that which 
was invisible, so seeming to make something out of noth- 
ing. All joy is ours, that of the mind full of devices 
for remaking, and that of the one who delights in per- 
fectly new material upon which to exploit his original 
powers. 

When engaged in any process of reconstruction let 
us remember how the body is being transformed by the 
renewal of the mind. New cells replace the old by the 
same Breath of Life in whose presence and by whose 
moving the originals were made manifest. New thoughts 
make new bodies. 

Some of the works that engage our interest have come 
under the ban of uselessness because they have been 
made for beauty and pleasure, and this day we can re- 
deem these works by seeing the usefulness of beauty 
as well as the beauty of usefulness, and that pleasure is 
life, and one of the chief works of life is to give pleasure. 
Thus, while trimming a hat one can remember that 
crown of a glorious life for which it stands ; while dress- 
ing the hair the thought can dwell on the halo of Spirit 
whose radiance becomes very visible when the heart is 
filled with love-memories of our first glory. Jewels 
stand for the treasures of the Kingdom, the Soul's grace 
is as an ornament to the neck, diamonds are the em- 

43 



SPIRITUAL 

blems of chastity and purity, and often they have been 
substituted for the consciousness of the reality and 
brought a quasi-temporal satisfaction. 

The fancy-work of leisure moments can be redeemed 
from sense of folly by keeping the imagination (fancy) 
pure and high at such times, guiding conversation out 
of meanderings along scandal, malice, and foolish gossip. 
Much good vacation work can be done by a wholesome 
mind resting in the midst of the vaporings of mentalities 
that have not yet "found themselves." The angel- 
presence of a true thinker on the summer porch or at the 
winter resort has been the leaven of the Kingdom of 
Heaven in the meal of negative brain centers, and has 
brought men and women to themselves, and started 
them on the way back to their Father's house. 

Wisdom is strength, folly is weakness. " My people 
perish for lack of knowledge." Many a frivolous, weak, 
senseless pursuit will be abandoned, and the dear 
one arrested from going on a path of degeneracy by 
reminding him (or her) that such signifies lack of in- 
telligence. 

In the Book of Proverbs Wisdom is personified as a 
woman most desirable for life-companionship, while 
sense delusion, worldly wisdom, sophistry, maya, the 
folly of isms— materialism, atheism, sensualism— are 

44 



HOUSEKEEPING 

personified as the strange woman that befools the un- 
wary, and leads them to failure, shame, and misery. 

If mistakes are made in building, or any other act of 
construction, waste no time in vain regrets. Speak the 
word quickly for accuracy and trueness, such as, "The 
Spirit makes me always sure and true," " I do every- 
thing exactly right," "Nothing can go wrong, for God 
makes good." Keep your eye on the true I and you 
will go where you look. One who was learning to 
ride the bicycle and whose mind was alert for all the 
lessons of life found himself continually running into the 
pillars of the rink where he was being taught. The 
teacher observing his mistakes called to him, " Young 
man, don't look at the posts unless you want to run into 
them, for you will always go where you look!" And 
he thought, "How that describes the power of one's 
mind!" 

" That thou seest, that thou beest." Keep your eye 
on the mark of the high calling of Christ Jesus. 

At times one is kept to a work by the powers that 
bless until a certain quality is developed, and the quick- 
est way out of an undesirable position is to do your very 
best in it. 

" Why is my talented son obliged to work in a po- 
sition where his gift has no opportunity for development ? 
45 



SPIRITUAL HOUSEKEEPING 

He has a fine genius for the violin, but he is working 
laboriously at braking on freight trains, and he likes it, 
too, "• said a fond mother to a Truth-teacher one day. 

"Perhaps there is some trait that must be estab- 
lished in him," was the reply, "before he is ready to take 
up his talent and use it. For instance, he may lack con- 
tinuity." 

" You are right!" she exclaimed, " that is just what he 
has lacked, so that he never would practice as he should. 
But he cannot indulge that weakness as a brakeman, 
and it is wonderful how he forces himself to rise exactly 
on time and keeps himself alert to do everything in his 
work with order and dispatch. It makes me quite con- 
tented now that I see there may be a purpose in it all." 

The word for Wednesday is " God works and wills in 
and through me, and in and through all things for good." 

Wisdom works wisdom's way, all beauty and useful- 
ness, all blessing and all delight. 



4 6 



THE FIFTH DAY 

Thursday — 1*obver "Day 

"^^^HOR, the Norse deity, whose name is the origin 
m C~\ of Thursday, or Thor's-day, was the God-Man 
^^^ of the northern mythology— the human being 
whose powers and works were manifested 
through being overshadowed by his divinity. This Man 
has ever been recognized by the dominant races of the 
planet and some, like the Greeks and the Hindus, have 
seen this master expressed in many forms, although with 
one Spirit. Such were Hercules and Achilles, Krishna 
and Ram, the Egyptian Osiris; and even the Aztecs 
of Mexico and the Peruvians of South America had their 
God-hero whose office and character partook of certain 
marked traits belonging to this manifestation. 

This God-Man is always a Savior of His people. One 
has twelve labors to perform in delivering the oppressed ; 
certain have human mothers and a divine father; all 
commune with the gods ; most of them have a vulnerable 
point that makes them subject to death; they heal dis- 
eases, they join the gods, and are immortalized in the 
memory of their people. 

47 



SPIRITUAL 

The cross was a symbol common to all the nations to 
whom religion was an important part of life. By the 
cross Osiris " gave light eternal to the Spirits of the 
Just " ; the cross, according to Prescott, was found by the 
Spaniards in the temples of Mexico as an object of wor- 
ship ; and in the form of a hammer it was the magic wand 
of Thor. With it, according to Scandinavian legends, 
Thor crushed the head of Mitgaard, the serpent, de- 
stroyed giants, restored to life the dead goats which ever 
after drew his car, and consecrated the pyre of Baldur. 

Thus we see that Thursday is the day of the Christ- 
Man, the power of Almighty God in the flesh. In the 
wonderful Nazarene all these symbols and works were 
rescued from myths and gathered together in a human 
life, which was to represent, to the end of time, the 
Way out of the maze of mortality, and the Life that sets 
us free from the seductions of the sense serpent. 

The story of Jesus Christ is not a myth compounded 
from the legends of the race but a witness to the marvel- 
ous power of the Holy (Whole) Spirit to picture forth 
in the flesh the great paradox of the Cross, that is, the 
victory and glory of the Real Self through the humilia- 
tion and complete denial of the petty self. 

Thursday is an open day in the communities that 
have observed a regular routine of housework, and it is 
48 



HO USEKEEPING 

devoted to a great variety of employments according to 
the neighborhood, city, or country, and the interests of 
the individual householders. There is gardening and 
letter-writing, making calls and receiving them; there 
are extra and unusual departments, such as cellar and 
garret to receive attention; there is " The Club;" there 
are the lessons in music, painting, and so forth ; there is 
the philanthropic work ; and in many places it is the day 
that the maid takes for her holiday. 

This is Individual Day, wherein the powers of one's 
divinity can be the special meditation that will serve to 
gather one's human radiations to a focusing center of 
strength, so that even with the infinite variety of de- 
mands that may be made upon one there will be no con- 
fusing distraction or scattering, but a glorious expression 
of talent and genius, the reality of the individual Idea 
which we are in the divine Mind. 



40 



SPIRITUAL 

Your individuality is your soul, and you are here to 
express it in fullness, the hero and heroine that you are, 
the original, beautiful, noble Self — that Idea of you in 
the Mind of God, equal with God, and God's own Being. 
The fear of the loss of one's individuality disappears 
through knowledge of Truth, for the Soul Sense is restored, 
and one knows one's self to be eternal Soul, as impossible 
to be lost as for God to cease to be. No soul can be lost — 
it is the sense of being Soul that has been obscured, 
and which returns by the saving power of the Christ-Self. 

Individuality is not demonstrated by separation, op- 
position, competition, or difference. This is the mistaken 
view of mortals, who thus hope to be individual by eccen- 
tricity, egotism, and exclusiveness. 

There is but one true Individual God, and we are 
all That. As personalities grow impersonal and univer- 
sal, putting away the petty differences of race, family, 
position, sex, and so forth, forgetting the little I, they 
show forth the character and powers of their Godhood, 
and join even the world's immortals. The hero who 
performs a great deed forgets himself, and even his 
family and everything but the Cause which he has 
espoused, and for which he is ready to die if it must be. 
The sense of personality utterly melts before the cosmic 
consciousness, yet individuality is intensely clear and 
So 



HOUSEKEEPING 

full, and immortality is an assurance forever beyond 
question. 

As the worker is engaged among the plants of her 
garden let her remember the plants of the Lord's plant- 
ing (read Jer. xvii, 7, 8), the precious one in the 
people of her world. And as she loves, trains, and 
nourishes each vine and shrub let her meditate upon the 
tender, watchful work of the Spirit toward every human 
being, pruning it, cleansing it, giving it the soil (environ- 
ment) best fitted to develop it. Let her remember that 
Eden garden of her soul and the deeds of true thinking 
and feeling implanted within her consciousness. The 
power of the Christ transcends time, and spiritual seeds 
can produce quickly " fruit after their kind." 

The word for Thursday is "All power is "given unto 
Me," and also " God's grace is sufficient for Me," mes- 
sages which radiate from the Christ-consciousness with- 
in. Divine power is not violent or resistant. It is effort- 
less and peaceful, yet mighty and effectual— it cannot be 
separated from Grace. 

Whenever strength is needed in one's affairs this 
Christ-power should be invoked, for by it wonder- 
works have been performed. A little woman found her- 
self at a place in a work of cleaning up her belongings 
and getting them ready for moving where she needed a 
51 



SPIRITUAL 

strong arm to lift a dentist's chair. She was alone, hav- 
ing been recently widowed, there was no man near, yet 
all her work would be delayed if this heavy iron chair 
was not moved. She breathed a silent prayer : " I can do 
all things through Christ which strengtheneth me," and 
she lifted that chair, and its weight was no more to her 
than a child's high-chair —indeed, it seemed to be as 
light as a balloon as she raised it off the rug that she had 
rolled up. Afterward it required two men to carry it 
out of the house. 

All power is given to you, the Christ-Self, in heaven 
and on earth, and that power overshadows, surrounds, 
upholds and fills the earth-man as he lets it. And this 
power cannot be limited by any earthly law; it is not 
upon a basis of ethics; it is above cause and effect, the 
Grace that ever works good because of love that sees 
only "My Beloved." 

In this light we understand the comfort and promise 
which Paul received when he heard " My grace is suf- 
ficient for thee" ; that is, the sweet graciousness of his 
own divinity would set him free from the rigid laws of 
reaping what he had sown by giving him power to for- 
give his enemies and cast out all bitterness, resentment, 
and desire for revenge. 

The gracious man or woman is the one who is con- 

52 



HOUSEKEEPING 

siderate, gentle, patient, kind to poor and rich alike, 
saint and sinner equally, knowing neither high nor low, 
but only: this is a human being, therefore one to be re- 
spected. 

The forms of salutation even in our letters, the cere- 
monies of polite society, the etiquette and courtesies ob- 
served by the aspiring members of the human family 
have their foundation in sincere actions of love and re- 
spect. Without these principles they become mere af- 
fectations and hypocrisy, or at best cold forms. It is in 
the power of the truth-lover to restore the dead letter 
of manners and customs to their original Spirit by doing 
all these things from the heart, and thinking of how one 
can bless and serve another in place of what is due to 
oneself. 

Thus, when one is making calls or receiving them, 
instead of dreading to meet certain ones, begin to meet 
them in Soul before the outward approach. Look 
through that shell, the mere external, and silently talk 
to the inner one while commonplace remarks about the 
weather and health, relations and current events are 
exchanged. You will find original remarks rising to 
your lips, displacing these trite hacks of effete conversa- 
tion. To you every human being then becomes a treas- 
ure-box to be opened and made to reveal the precious 
53 



SPIRITUAL 

jewels there which may even surprise their owners. 
Each one, even the most repulsive and uncongenial, 
stands for a heavenly Idea. Exercise yourself to find 
what they represent in divine Mind— perhaps it is the 
very opposite to what they appear, and it will yet be 
proven so to you. 

Writing letters represents the Spirit's eternal act of 
sending forth the Word, therefore they can go forth with 
inspiration. Holding to the Christ-power to word your 
epistles will make them easy in style, rich in substance 
and able to convey truly what was intended. Giving 
this act to God will prevent writing when in a passion, or 
under any thought-pressure of evil. And also it will 
cause some letters to remain unsent. Again, it will send 
messages between the lines that will make the letter 
food and drink to tlie spiritually hungry. 

" Do all things unto the glory of God." When you 
go to the Club, be the sweet gracious thought that heals 
gossip and envying, that harmonizes factions and pro- 
motes usefulness, and though you are silent, some mem- 
ber will voice your thought in a way acceptable and 
helpful in expressing the real purpose of the organiza- 
tion. If you go to the theater, find the Spirit there and 
see how it is giving light and joy to the soul. If you 
attend a dance, let the grace of your Spirit lift men's 

54 



HOUSEKEEPING 

thoughts above the mere sensuous into the heights where 
Miriam dwelt with David when they danced before the 
Lord. If you play cards, redeem them from the earth- 
passion and condemnation, and as you let your intelli- 
gence and skill testify to a power greater than ordinary, 
silently give all praise to the One. Every game has an 
innocent origin— cards were even Scripture to the people 
who first used them, they claiming their invention to 
be from the gods. Whatever is pernicious in games will 
not pass by condemnation but by redemption. 

Taking and giving lessons in art, science, language, 
or any work may be associated with the soul's power of 
imparting itself; knowing, without strenuous study, do- 
ing, without arduous practice. All thought of stupidity 
and inability must be swallowed up in the memory of 
the source of power and intelligence. Dismiss every 
suggestion of " can't " with the realization of "I-can-and- 
I-will" by the power and grace of your God-Self. As a 
teacher you can imbue your pupil. As a student you 
can be so baptized by your Supreme Self. 

This day of grace that knows neither high nor low 
is a fit one in which to give the servant her holiday, hon- 
oring her desires and considering her welfare as you 
would be blessed were you in her place. Seeing one 
life in all makes it possible for one to appreciate the 
55 



SPIRITUAL 

needs and wishes of another whose tastes may be quite 
different from our own. We may discover them to be 
more delicate on certain points, and where they seem to 
be inferior we can respect their right and not despise or 
judge superficially. "Shall the eye say to the hand, I 
have no need of thee?" We are members of one body, 
and each member is to be honored according to its view 
of what is fit and desirable. There are servants who 
" know their place" and love to keep it and to have it 
recognized graciously and wisely, and there are servants 
who desire to be treated as members of the family, and 
the true master and mistress of the household know how 
to bring that wish to pass to the comfort and well-being 
of all. We are all servants in love, one with Him who 
came not to be served but to serve. 

And now we come to the philanthropic work to 
which you may pay special attention on some days even 
though every day be tinctured with some form of it. In 
the first place we lift it all out of the old view of "charity," 
the thought that we give to others that which was not 
theirs but by our favor — the act of a superior to an in- 
ferior. Such is an abomination in the sight of the Lord. 

We realize that all belongs to the One, who is in all, 
and we never give to another aught but his own, and 
our part is but to be wise stewards in this demesne of 
56 



HOUSEKEEPING 

the Father of us all, giving by the Spirit and withhold- 
ing by the Spirit. Until you can give the true thought 
with your money you have not fulfilled your part. The 
wise one gives to the Christ in all and does not regard 
the appearance — looks through the drunkard, the grime 
and the wickedness to the One that God sent, " the light 
which lighteth every man." To him there are no tramps, 
no beggars, no imposters. He thinks not of need nor 
poverty, as he gives to the rich one that is there, the 
worthy one, the honest, the able, the true One. And 
with that thought he draws forth the man of God. Only 
those who are prompted by the Christ within can appeal 
to you as you hold yourself to be God's Hand to dis- 
pense His bounty, and you can say with all your heart 
to every one whose case draws forth your sympathy, 
" Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." 
Indiscriminate charity is a weakness and often a thought- 
less make-shift of ignorance, that thinks itself unselfish 
when it is only superficially easing its own discomfort 
at the sight of pain and want. Give your impulses to 
inspiration and not be prompted so much by the sense 
of the reality of the evil as by the joy of distributing the 
plenty God has given you. 

A lady of New York City determined one winter to 
literally " give to everyone that asked" her. By the end 
57 



SPIRITUAL 

of the winter her house had become " a tramp's boarding 
house"— so her cook said. The following winter she 
followed the same rule and she found her income hardly 
sufficient for her own living, besides her servants greatly 
taxed. Nevertheless she kept bravely on, and when 
the third winter started and the same horde began to 
come— men of previous years returning again and again, 
having her place marked and listed on their memoranda, 
she was led to seek counsel of a teacher of divine Mind 
power. The latter asked her : 

" To whom have you been giving? To the tramp, 
the beggar, the drunkard?" 

" O, yes!" she promptly replied, "to everyone that 
has come." 

"Then, hereafter do not give to them, but to your 
brothers, to the Christ in them, and silently say to every- 
one, ' I give to the true One in you, and the honest, tem- 
perate, pure One in you uses this gift to the glory of 
your Godhood. , Moreover have this realization for 
yourself, expressed in the words of Christ, ' No man can 
come to me except the Father which hath sent me, draw 
him.'," 

She took this advice, and the magical result was a 
class of applicants whose number and character she 
could serve easily and satisfactorily with the sense that 
58 



HOUSEKEEPING 

she was truly blessing and not " hindering them on their 
upward way." 

One of the most remarkable proofs of the power of 
a silent blessing accompanying a gift, with a spoken 
word of good to seal it, was shown in the following in- 
stance : 

It was a drizzly winter day in Los Angeles when a 
man who would be called a typical hobo, dirty, unshaven, 
unkempt, with breath redolent of liquor, presented him- 
self at the kitchen-door of a lady who had begun to take 
the true attitude towards all humanity, asking for money. 
A very strict law had been passed in Los Angeles to ar- 
rest such creatures, and this lady could have handed 
him over to a policeman who happened to be near by, 
but she did not. She answered simply : 

" Very well, wait a minute," and went to get her 
purse to find a small coin. There was nothing less than 
a fifty-cent piece in it. 

" This is too much," she thought. Then, " No, I will 
give it with a message to his soul." 

So, holding it in the palm of her hand, she blessed 
it, and said : 

" Go with him and tell him, he is a child of the Most 
High God, pure and holy, loving noble things and able 
to live an honorable, manly life, honest and true!" 

59 



SPIRITUAL 

Then she put the coin into his hand, speaking aloud 
the words, as she looked him in the eye : 

" I believe in you !" 

As he hurried down the hill he was filled with glee 
as he thought of the treat that he and his tramp-chums 
would have down among the hogsheads where they had 
been having their open-air lodgings. As his bleary eyes 
brightened at the thoughts of the prospective " beers" 
another thought would come athwart these, and he 
would say: 

" I wonder what she meant by saying ' I believe in 
you!' " 

The words kept coming. At the corner of Fourth 
and Spring streets he went into a cellar where the Salva- 
tion Army was holding a meeting, so as to be out of the 
rain and enjoy his good luck. The Salvation people 
were telling of the work they had procured for a number 
of men, and they were inviting any who were there to 
come forward and list their names for employment and 
they would do for them what they could. A strong feel- 
ing came over this man to take up a clean life, and he 
found himself in the aisle going up to be an applicant. 
The outcome was an invitation from the Salvationists to 
work around their barracks for his room and board until 
they could procure him a place. This he did. At the 
60 



HOUSEKEEPING 

end of a month he obtained a job, proved competent, 
was promoted, and six months from that drizzly day he 
presented himself at the door of that lady's house, a fine 
handsome man, both within and without, seeking to 
know why she said, " I believe in you." 

" How far doth a little candle send its rays!" 
11 Let your light so shine before men that they may 
see your good works and glorify your Father which is 
in heaven." 



6t 



THE SIXTH DAY 

Friday— Day of Purity 

ERIDAY, the "sweeping-day" throughout the 
realm of the orderly housewives, has of old 
been under the auspices of that goddess of love 
who was all grace, beauty and purity, Frigga, 
the Venus of the Norse mythology. These three attributes 
belong to the Love that is Divine, and where any one is 
missing it must be supplied, that the expression of love 
on the earth may be perfect— grace that is the heighth 
of unselfishness, beauty, the natural radiance of love 
and purity, the unalloyed freedom of true hearts. 

Early on Friday morning every thing is astir for 
a good sweeping and dusting. The windows are thrown 
open, as indeed they are every morning, and as the 
fresh, sweet billows of new-day sunshine and air roll 
in we remember why we love and embrace them so. 
It means our union with our world, our enlarging the 
areas of our earth-consciousness. 

The reason why we love the great out-doors so 
much, flinging aside draperies and swinging our case- 
62 



SPIRITUAL HOUSEKEEPING 

ments wide open, is because it represents the Spirit's 
universality, rising above the selfish interests, and break- 
ing forth into joy in the life of the whole. But if some 
one is fearful of the drafts, and compels us to sleep in 
a room tight-closed, it is our privilege to remember we 
carry an aura of soul-breath of which we can partake 
at such moments, exercising one of the powers of our 
divinity to extract the wholesome from the foul, the 
pure from the impure. The Hindu devotee that has 
this power is called a pa.ra.mha.msa. — the great Swan, 
because of the tradition that if you put a drink of milk 
and water before a swan it has the power to sup the milk 
and leave the water. Never let the thought of a close 
room annoy or pain you. You breathe the breath of the 
Almighty, and nothing can stifle you or make you faint 
or give you headache— you are greater than any earthly 
air. 

As the merry little housewife goes about brushing 
the curtains and pinning them up, dusting the orna- 
ments and putting them under covers, sweeping the 
walls and mouldings and picture-frames, beating dust 
out of cushions, dusting and moving out furniture, all 
preparatory to the thorough sweeping of the floor, rugs 
and carpets, let her meditate upon the grace and beauty 
and purity of that inner home of love, our heaven. 
63 



SPIRITUAL 

Some of the carvings and scrolleries may test her pa- 
tience, but let love reveal how she is uncovering some 
of the hidden subtle beauties of soul by her persistent 
word — the dust-cloth is " the word" as also the broom, 
and all the different implements of sweeping. As her 
new thoughts work with her busy hands she may see 
that some of the ornaments are anything but orna- 
mental—they are old-fashioned, they have not kept in 
line with her own development in taste and the march 
of the race as to standards of beauty — they are faded 
or broken, and simply cumber the room. Then she can 
cull them out, realizing she is renewing her youth as 
she is willing to put away these old useless sentiments 
and break down attachment to relics which in some 
cases she has kept because of the donor who "will be 
more honored in the breach than in the observance" of 
these respectful memories. 

Learn to pass along things you have outgrown but 
which may still give someone else pleasure or benefit. 
Instead of cluttering your attic with heaps of cast-off 
clothing or piles of ornaments and furniture that are 
passe give them to those of your little sisters who will 
receive them as from a sister. There are always the 
settlement-workers, the Salvation Army, the kinder- 
garten philanthropists, and individuals who carry maga- 
64 



HOUSEKEEPING 

zines to hospitals, teach the ignorant to make homes, 
and work privately in multifold ways for the negative 
members of our world-family who will be glad to get 
a message from you, asking them to place these articles 
which are still good, and which you feel to pass along. 

Bless everything that you dust, especially the old 
and ugly. Cease to fret because things so poorly rep- 
resent your ideals. Change the tendency of finding 
fault with the furniture and walls into habits of medi- 
tating on the forms that would better portray the ideas 
they represent. Thus a chair stands for the idea of rest, 
and if the chair is broken or ugly, uncomfortable or 
weak, then as you dust it, call it God's Rest, and de- 
clare, " God's Rest is perfect and beautiful, full of 
comfort and strength, and It is here." If no cor- 
respondence comes to mind, silently affirm in a general 
way, "This stands for an idea of God, the Good. All 
God's ideas are true and full of grace, pure and beau- 
tiful." 

A lady who was burdened with the sense of the 
oldness and unfit character of her furniture took up 
this method of blessing and thanksgiving, because she 
saw it was the true attitude of mind, with the result 
of being able to dispose of all her old furniture, and, 
while moving into a new apartment, to get new furnish- 
65 



SPIRITUAL 

ings throughout, having demonstrated the way and the 
means of procuring these by the Truth to which she 
was conforming her whole life. And today she is a 
prosperous, independent healer, owning her own home, 
all through living this life, this special feature begin- 
ning with the day that she blessed her belongings instead 
of cursing them by finding fault and hating them. 

Harmony in the mind finds expression in harmony 
of the home-furnishings, but sometimes the tune is 
pitched too low, and it is not music but silence, and the 
key must be raised to higher tones. As when a guitar is 
tuned too low, and you raise one string to the right pitch 
and then the others to harmonize, so sometimes a new 
piece of furniture can become the key to new furnishings 
throughout, everything beginning to "live up to" the 
latest import. And the money comes and the way opens 
where there is a will founded upon principle. 

This is the day of cleanliness, that of the within 
as well as the without. "Cleanliness is next to godli- 
ness," but it may be the "miss that is as good as a mile" 
if kindness and unselfishness are forgotten. For god- 
liness means happiness, comfort and peace, and if one's 
cleanliness is such as to make oneself unhappy at the 
sight of dirt or make others uncomfortable, then it 
is far from godliness, and one needs to go often by 
66 



HOUSEKEEPING 

oneself and "clean house" interiorly, putting away the 
belief in the reality of uncleanliness, and the pride in 
one's order and immaculate neatness. While outwardly 
all should be sweet, spotless and clean, inwardly there 
should be the same consciousness, so that the mind is 
at rest and withdrawn from detecting dirt and seeing 
disorder at untimely moments. To go about contin- 
ually putting in order, wiping up mud-stains, brushing 
up litter with ubiquitous dustpan and brush in hand 
is a sign of disorder in the mentality, where the real cor- 
rection must begin. All the efforts to keep clean should 
be so effectually hidden that things will seem to keep 
themselves neat and orderly. 

No one's thoughtless untidiness should distract you 
nor bring scolding, nagging words to your lips. The 
latter are more out of order than the former. "But," you 
may ask, "how shall these careless habits in the family 
be corrected?" By silent communion with the One 
who is in us all that ever calls forth harmony out of 
chaos. By faithful belief in the true One in the grow- 
ing child there will come to the mind ways and devices 
which are pleasant and even entertaining by which they 
are reminded to hang up their hats, or wipe the mud 
from their shoes, and to attend to all those regularities, 
even in trifles, the observance of which so largely makes 
67 



SPIRITUAL 

a happy household. At most these early years of 
selfish savagery, the remains of race chaos, are 
but few. Be patient, and trust, and never lose your 
peace. 

The gentle art of housekeeping includes within 
itself a happy abandonment in its working that puts 
all at ease, skillfully covering any noise or friction 
of the "machinery." So inspired has been the general- 
ship of many a successful house-mother that families 
have been born, raised and married before their mem- 
bers have dreamed of the masterly management that 
made their home to be a home, and some have never 
found it out. Revelations await us along these lines 
of unwritten history. 

As the good housewife on this, Frigga's day, wields 
her broom with short, strong strokes or light ones, 
let her be reminded of the Spirit sweeping from her 
mentality and out of her life all the useless dust and 
accumulations of false thinking and feeling, especially 
all memory of impurities in herself and others. To 
see and talk about impurity is to have lodged in the 
cells of one's brain and other organs what the physi- 
cians call "dirt," and clean thinking sweeps out the 
foreign matter from our cells and saves us from the 
diseases resulting from it. 

68 - 



HOUSEKEEPING 

The dust rolled up in tiny, grey clouds of down, 
lying in quiet corners on the floor, outpictures idle 
thoughts, materialistic and worldly. The large damp 
cloth that gathers them from day to day is the gentle, 
vigilant word of Spirit that daily frees us from the 
world while yet we are in it. 

Idle thoughts Emerson, in one of his essays, com- 
pares to flies, and by such similies we often find cor- 
respondences between the inner and the outer, and 
herein we have a hint of what we are driving out from 
our mentalities when we swing the fly-driver. One of 
the problems of housekeeping is the dealing with ants, 
moths and other insects, so as to be free from them, and 
not appear to destroy life. Every form of vermin, like 
the "disease microbe," is subject to the will of man, and 
though the forms be destroyed, the instructed truth- 
student should never hold that life has been taken, else 
he will bind himself, and come under the whip of con- 
science. "Happy is the man that condemneth not him- 
self in that thing which he alloweth," and if because 
of ignorance of any better way he destroys the form of 
a snake or a scorpion, a man-eating tiger or a mouse, 
he should realize that the life of each is as safe as his 
own, and even then begins to form another body and 
seek ingress for it to the outer world. But the best 
69 



SPIRITUAL 

of all is to win the victory by the skill of knowing. 
The wonderful intelligence that marks the ant has 
been so identified with the highest intelligence that si- 
lent reasoning with it has resulted in turning ants from 
a house to the outside field. 

No expression of life is an enemy to the one who 
understands and seeks the friendship of all. This is 
the key to the success of the bee-keeper who can handle 
his charges and never be stung. All insects that in- 
trude upon man can be seen in their best light, each an 
aspirant for a higher form that is admirable to their 
Lord, man, and which is of a harmless nature and even 
more, a benefit. 

There are no parasites in the kingdom of heaven, 
and every such appearance can be transmuted by the 
magical thought of man who can raise a form, without 
destroying it, from a low, selfish vibration to a high, beau- 
tiful form of a brilliant color and graceful movement. The 
lovely butterfly is the ideal of the moth, the brilliant 
dragon-fly of the mosquito, the green-gold beetles and 
honored scarabse are the high marks for the despised 
parasites of their own family. All creation rises by 
pleasing man, the Lord of creation. 

When cleaning house in the spring or fall, the 
presiding consciousness of loving, and peaceful purity, 
70 



HOUSEKEEPING 

can take away the sense of confusion, and attract com- 
fort and joyous cooperation on the part of all the mem- 
bers of the household. The pneumatic and electric de- 
vices for cleaning have come to us because man is let- 
ting inspiration and invention raise the work of the 
race out of the Adamic curse to the Christ-plane where 
all work becomes a joy. Willingness to try new ways 
and purchase the latest labor-saving implements which 
have been proven belongs to the youthful realization 
that renews the body and keeps one abreast with the 
times. The Spirit ever lives in the Now. Every form 
of work that freshens up the old, brightens with polish, 
decorates and renovates, stands for the power of the 
Self to bring forth the heavenly treasures both old and 
new. Spirituality prevents all crudity and bad taste 
in this refurbishing of the old and making acquisitions 
of the new. Standards of beauty and grace in furniture 
come forth from the mentalities of those who combine 
art with work because of inspiration and love of cre- 
ating. And whoever makes the selection of his house- 
furnishings a matter of spiritual importance will be of 
the same mind as the most artistic of his time. And it 
will not always be a matter of expense, for some of the 
most artistic furniture has cost little money and has 
often been the work of the home-maker, who has be- 
71 



SPIRITUAL 

come cabinet-worker for the time being, to the lasting 
pleasure and profit of the family. 

All the employments that combine the useful and 
the beautiful are opportunities for the overshadowing 
by high ideals that minister to the best in customers, and 
destroy vanity-thoughts, and set aside the weaknesses, 
follies and deceptions of those that seek your service 
and what you have. The questions of integrity and 
honor that arise between employer and employed can 
be silently met with Principle, so that demands can- 
not be made upon you that are unjust or dishonest. 
Meet the direction to misrepresent given you by your 
superior (in worldly position) with the silent declara- 
tion, "You love honor, and you ask only the honor- 
able thing of me," and two results will follow your 
divine word: first, such suggestions will cease to come 
your way; second, your own God-powers will "make 
good" your representation. You are then the healing 
word for the crooked ways of the business-world, and 
the ignorant and shameful methods fall away before 
the strong light of Principle that brooks no compro- 
mise. 

Silent appeals to the soul of a man succeed where 
preachments fail. If your superior has a superior who 
in turn has his, who is responsible for such orders, then 
73 



HOUSEKEEPING 

you can mentally go to headquarters and heal the bit- 
ter waters at their source. There is no phase of human 
life that needs healing more than business, and who- 
ever will stay by his post, radiating the warm light of 
his own pure ideals without antagonism or condemna- 
tion, will correct and transform the worldly code of 
business dealings by simply being, as the sun breaks 
up the darkness, about which it knows nothing, by 
steadfastly shining. 

There is a monotony about some employments that 
is very trying, handling the same things, repeating the 
same words, doing some one thing hour after hour. 
The devotee of Truth will here find a special advan- 
tage in the power of the Spirit to ring infinite variations 
through the one theme. As illustration : a young woman 
had many chairs to dust— nearly two hundred— usually 
a long, tedious work. One day she conceived the idea of 
giving a blessing to all those who should next occupy 
those chairs, and she varied the blessing with each 
chair she handled, and the work became alive to her and 
ceased to be merely mechanical. Workers in factories 
and piece-workers can mentally go forth into the world 
with every piece they handle, touching with messages of 
"the good tidings" the distant islands and zones of 
arctic cold and tropic heat. All sense of being a ma- 
73 



SPIRITUAL 

chine passes away with the incoming of the rich Spirit 
that gives real value to all work. 

The word for Friday is Purity. 

" Unto the pure all things are pure " (Titus i, 15). 

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see 
God" (Matt, v, 8). 

" Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil " (Hab. 

i, 13). 

" I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus that 
there is nothing unclean of itself " (Rom. xiv, 14). 

" Behold, all things are clean unto you " (Luke xi, 41;. 

Special attention can be paid this day to eliminating 
from the personal and the race consciousness all belief 
in the reality of impurity. The human mentality, like a 
lake, reflects whatever is brought into right relation for 
reflection, and in order to be a good reflector this mind 
must be still and clear. We have already considered the 
stillness, now let us think upon the clearness. If the 
water is muddy there is a poor reflection, so poor that 
few eyes can see it, but where water is pure from mud 
and other foreign elements the reflections are so perfect 
that the scene within the water is the same as that with- 
out, though inverted. Pure thoughts are the clearness 
of the mind, but beliefs in impurity are as mud to the 
mentality, and picture forth as corruption in the body. 
74 



HOUSEKEEPING 

Not only must one realize oneself pure, but all things that 
one can see or recognize in any way must be viewed only 
in their purity. 

The false suggestions of adultery, of the reality of the 
unchaste, of all unholiness, and every form of unclean- 
ness must be swept from the mind by the free, fresh 
winds of spiritual insight. It may require a daily use of 
the mental broom and duster of the true word to cleanse 
the family mind from the daily contact of newspaper 
reports of " horrors, " and so forth, but no better work 
can be done for yourself and them. 

While purity is the principal thought maintained on 
this day of Venus the other thoughts of beauty and grace 
must often be remembered, for the meditation upon 
purity alone has been cold and severe, like the snows 
that are piled on our sidewalks in winter. Even the 
old ascetic thought of purity must be swept aside by the 
true thought, which is one with beauty and grace, and if it 
falls to your lot to sweep away the snow from steps and 
paths carry the love-consciousness that warms you to the 
work with its memory of the whole trinity of love in form, 
beauty, grace and purity. 

As you go from room to room on this day with the 
sweet contentment of reviewing all the outward clean- 
ness stand in the center of each one and radiate the 
75 



SPIRITUAL HOUSEKEEPING 

inward praise of your sunny soul, giving to each room 
that special blessing that redeems it from some limita- 
tions or make universal some special goodness that 
belongs to it. Thus, if it is too dark, breathe a blessing 
of God's light shining there— who knows? perhaps 
some one will think of putting a little window in the roof 
or high in the wall or some fit place that will be the out- 
picturing of your silent prayer. Another room may be 
all that is ideal in its appointments, and as you stand in 
the center of that room radiate its rich spirit to the thou- 
sands of homes round about that are void of that comfort 
and beauty; some receptive heart will catch the message 
and the spirit, and another home will grow towards 
heaven because of your loving prayer. 

" In my Father's house are many mansions," many 
manifestations of harmony and every other good—" I go 
to prepare a place for you." The Christ ever goes forth 
to prepare yours for you, mine for me, and all for all. 
You do likewise who build a happy home, not for your- 
self alone, but for all, not for time alone, but for all 
eternity. 



76 




THE SEVENTH DAY 

Sa fur day — Perfection 

r EVEN is the number of the perfect Man, who 
has made the complete union between the 
human and the Divine, therefore the day was 
pronounced sacred to the finished work of the 
Creator, a day to celebrate, a holy day and a holiday, 
which are one in Spirit and true manifestation. 

When the Christ in Jesus blessed every day of the 
week, and made them all holy, there were some of his 
Hebrew followers who still " esteemed one day above 
another." For their sake the resurrection-day became 
the Lord's Day, nevertheless Saturday, as the Sabbath, 
was not wholly abolished among the Jewish Christians, 
and it was of them that Paul wrote (Rom. xiv, 5) : " One 
man esteemeth one day above another : another esteem- 
eth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded 
in his own mind." At this time every Christian knew 
himself to be a priest of God, a " Levite," ready to serve 
the Lord in each with roast sacrifices of lamb and beeves, 
and sacred bread and honored wine. Their communions 
77 



SPIRITUAL 

were love-feasts where some would come with large ap- 
petites and exhibit unseemly greed, so that Paul felt 
the need of ministering such rebukes as in the eleventh 
chapter of First Corinthians, twenty-first, thirty-third 
and thirty-fourth verses, counselling them to take the 
edge off their hunger before coming to the table of the 
Lord, lest they eat with forgetfulness. 

There was so much to do in these servings that special 
officers were appointed for the work, the very first one 
being the great Stephen, " a man full of faith, and the 
Holy Ghost," and power, doing "great wonders and 
miracles among the people " (Acts vi, 2-8). He proved 
that a lover of Truth can serve tables and minister the 
Word, do great works most effectually, reason with in- 
tellectual rulers, have the face of an angel (Acts vi, 15), 
and endure martyrdom, realizing the glory of the cosmic 
vision in his passing hour (Acts vii, 55, 56). 

In the old dispensation the Sabbath was the busiest 
day of the week for the priests, for there was so much to 
do of sacred service, and the natural descendant of that 
Levitical labor is the strenuous finishing work of our old 
time housewives on Saturday. And the orthodox clergy 
of to-day find their Sabbath the most laborious day of 
the week, for they, too, cling to the old dispensation, the 
" esteeming one day above another." It is in our power 
78 



HOUSEKEEPING 

to unite the rich-providing work of the old living with the 
light merrymaking of the new, and make of our Satur- 
days both a rounding fullness of a week well-lived and 
an overflowing holiday of care-free frolic, thus most 
happily wedding work and play at this meeting of the 
ways of the old week and the new. 

Saturday is the day of Saturn, or Satan, the ancient 
god of wrath, whose reign was finished with the incoming 
of the Christ. This is the god whose subtle, secret 
revenge upon his enemies has been so well depicted in 
that mythological character after whom the planet 
Saturn was named, and which is said to have astrological 
influences — cold, cruel, selfish and deceitful— upon 
those in opposition, but beneficent to those who know 
how to " agree with their adversary " and to be still 
before it, and more subtle, mounting to God in their 
selfness, and able always to lift up every serpent in the 
wilderness. 

Interesting declarations are made for these times by 
spiritual astrologers, who tell us that as a race we have 
passed from the dominant ruling of Saturn to that of 
Uranus, and whereas our most successful men have 
been of the saturnine temperament— cool, calculating 
and secretive — the men who will succeed in this age, 
and for coming centuries, will be of the Uranian tempera- 
79 



SPIRITUAL 

ment— bold and radical, frank and original, willing to 
trust their impressions, and acknowledge psychical 
powers ; and certainly the men who are the rising rulers 
of the hour are largely fulfilling that description— exeunt 
the Rockefeller type of success, enter the Roosevelt 
manner of leaders. "All the world's a stage," and 
every actor has his day. 

Saturday is the day in which we redeem every re- 
maining evil belief, beginning with that god of evil called 
Satan, the devil, " that old serpent." 

When the children of Israel were journeying from 
Egypt to the Land of Promise, they became rebellious 
and complaining, and old desires for their former slave- 
life came upon them, for then they could also enjoy some 
of the rich dishes of their masters. Their fault-findings 
and bitter loathings took form as serpents that turned 
upon their creators and stung them to death. Then 
Moses prayed for knowledge of the way to deliver his 
people, and was told to make an image of a serpent from 
brass in such a fashion that it could glow with the heat 
and light of fire within it, then to lift this upon a pole, or 
cross, and it would follow that all who would listen and 
obey should be healed by simply lifting their eyes to the 
image which had been moulded under the directions of 
the Holy Spirit, and they repented and were healed. 
80 



HOUSEKEEPING 

The same method was advised for those Philistines 
whose capture and retention of the ark of the Lord in 
their midst seemed to work them evil instead of good, 
because they could not live up to it. They became 
afflicted with boils, and their fields were overrun with a 
pest of mice. They returned the ark, and sought counsel 
of the Israelites, and were told to make images of the 
mice and of the boils in gold, and present them to the 
Lord, and they did so, and were healed in body and in 
their land. 

A wonderful principle is involved in these strange 
performances, and it is for us not to miss the secret 
power of deliverance that comes through understanding 
how to make a mental image of our infliction under the 
guidance of the Spirit, so that we can lift up our eyes, our 
perception, and be healed. 

The " abomination of desolation," or the most hateful 
and destructive agency in our lives, must come to the 
holy place of the high and noble recognition of the good- 
ness there before the end of the old condition can come 
to pass. To love your enemy you must find God there. 

Satan is the reverse side of God, called in the Old 
Testament, " the anger of the Lord," as is shown by 
comparing II Samuel, twenty-fourth chapter and first 
verse with I Chronicles, twenty-first chapter and first 

81 



SPIRITUAL 

verse. It is that view of God that gives deity all the 
false characteristics of the mortal, such as deception, 
killing, revenge, hate, and all those degrading traits 
that the illuminated have said must be destroyed in 
man that he may please God. But this view of God 
had its good effect in arresting certain degeneration 
through a wholesome fear, until the Christ consciousness 
should reveal the God of love, through the love that 
knows that what the Great One rebukes in man cannot 
be in Itself. 

Satan is that aspect of divinity which is a terror to 
evil-doers, and a tester to those on the upward way. 
No mere pretender can pass its examination success- 
fully, but the true candidate for celestial degrees realizes 
the nature of its examinations, and comes through with 
honors. And yet so advanced is the knowledge of divin- 
ity now that it is possible to be " honorably promoted,'* 
not having the necessity of examination, or testing, to 
prove us worthy. Thus are our daily prayers answered, 
"Lead us not into temptation." Satan, the seventh 
angel of the Lord (called in Isaiah eleventh chapter, 
third verse, " the fear of the Lord ") came among the 
Sons of God (Job i, 6) when they assembled to con- 
sider that master, Job, and his fitness for further bless- 
ings. He tries Job even as he tested Jesus— the one 

82 



HOUSEKEEPING 

passed through quickly without failure, the other be- 
comes a type of the long trial through which so many are 
passing— long because of ignorance, yet triumphant in 
the end, so that the candidate has honors and riches 
many fold more than in the beginning. Satan redeemed 
becomes the mystery of Godliness, that open door to the 
infinite variety, the unexpected, the eccentric that ever 
allows the unusual, the rare, the unconventional to be 
expressed in harmony with the whole. 

Saturday in its employments is a combination of con- 
tradictions, being a holiday for some, the hardest work- 
day of the week for others, and sabbath-day for others 
still. It is a day in which to deify that which has been 
our cross, our sorrow, grievance, humiliation, and so 
remove the sting, and be healed of the bite. Work it- 
self may be our Satan, yet it may have a grand ripening 
mission for us in preparing us for our own place, just as 
Saturday prepares for Sunday. Instead of running 
away from it, hating it, and rebelling, let us use the subtle 
policy of Jesus Christ, who threw himself whole-heartedly 
into the earth life until he made it yield up its sweetness 
and richness to all. It is possible to finish quickly with 
a hard and uncongenial piece of work by getting from it 
for oneself and others all that which God intended. 

The principle work of Saturday is baking and cooking 
83 



SPIRITUAL 

in general, and the meditations which we will associate 
with this day's work we can connect with every meal 
that is prepared throughout the week. 

Right here it is well to call attention to the fact that 
many times one will be so absorbed in one's work that no 
special spiritual thinking will come to mind, then the 
habit of associating elevated ideas with that work in par- 
ticular will imbue the whole with spirituality and make 
it a joyous, free expression wherein the Good only is 
remembered. It is not necessary always to think upon 
exact ideals, but rather to have one's whole activity ideal- 
ized by perpetual recognition of the beautiful, the good 
and the true everywhere. 

What one cooks partakes of one's nature, and the more 
of one's quality of goodness, such as love and kindly care 
and thought, one puts into food the more it is relished. 
It is not always that the cook thinks about the food she 
is preparing— sometimes she gives it no special thought 
—but it is to have a certain radiance of goodness that is 
sympathetic and interesting in its quality. 

Home cooking is enjoyed because mother-love is put 
into it. A rich sympathetic human interest enters into 
such food which is missing when the food is machine- 
made, or when the mind of the cook is filled with com- 
mercial dryness and dead indifference. It is the hearty, 
84 



HOUSEKEEPING 

genuine interest in people that makes the success of the 
public caterer, especially when combined with fearless- 
ness and a correct sense of values. 

Nothing is more prolific of symbolical suggestion than 
food. It is much favored in the Bible to indicate heav- 
enly truths that nourish the spiritual man; meat is used 
for strong statements of truth, milk for elementary 
teaching (Heb. v, 12-14). So also fruit, bread, wine, 
butter and honey are used for truths which are to be ap- 
propriated and assimilated. 

When making bread, remember Jesus' comparison of 
the Kingdom of Heaven to the three measures of meal 
which a woman takes in preparing loaves for the baking. 
The Master was wonderfully familiar with the common 
tasks of lowly life, and almost all his metaphors are 
drawn from domestic and field life. And nothing shows 
this better than this figure (Matt, xiii, 33). First the 
yeast (the truth) is put into a small measure of flour (the 
twelve disciples) until that measure is thoroughly leav- 
ened. Then it is mixed with the next measure (the 
Christians of the past centuries) and now the third meas- 
ure is receiving its working. So with the three-fold in- 
dividual man, the measures may be named, soul, body 
and affairs. Long has the human soul, or character, 
been under the influence of the Christ message, until 
8s 



SPIRITUAL 

now the next measure, the physical body, is being elec- 
trified with vitality, and ultimately the grand old world 
will respond to its persistent love-leavening. 

In the home the family can be changed from discon- 
tent and dissatisfaction by cooking the food with the true 
thought. A complaining mood spoils digestion more 
than material things. " Better is a dinner of herbs where 
love is than a stalled ox and hatred therewith" (Prov. xv, 
17). A certain hausfrau had much difficulty in satisfying 
her large hungry family of six grown sons and their 
father. With old-fashioned German lavishness she pro- 
vided the best and plenty for ordinary appetites, but her 
men had extraordinary appetites. In vain she increased 
the quantity— they were never quite satisfied. When 
she received the understanding that their real hunger 
was for spiritual food she silently bespoke for each the 
true satisfaction. The result was almost startling. 
They became normal, and her cooking was no longer a 
burden, and sweet content reigned in her house. 

Every meal can be a communion. " This do in remem- 
brance of Me." Eat and drink of the spiritual body—" a 
body hast thou prepared for me" — by remembering that 
man liveth not by bread alone, but by the Word, which 
he is in the mouth of the Lord. The silent grace before 
eating sanctifies all the food so that nothing can by any 
86 



HOUSEKEEPING 

means harm you. Discern the body of the Lord in every- 
thing that is set before you. Often invoke the power of 
the Spirit to reveal its presence in all that you eat. 

Discern for me, O, Spirit, 

The body of my Lord ; 
I eat thee, I drink thee, 

I live by thy Word. 

He that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast 
(Prov. xv, 15). Nothing worrisome or vexatious should 
ever be discussed at meal time. A silent invocation for 
the realization of their Good working in and through their 
lives should be breathed for those who come to breakfast 
with a scowl and a complaint, and it is often in the power 
of the captain of the house-ship to steer her charge clear 
from the reefs and rocks of inharmonious conversation. 

One of the opportunities for the cultivation of patience 
and self-control is in dish-washing. Certain truth- 
students have found that they get their most inspiring 
thoughts when engaged in this common task. The very 
mechanical nature of their work allows them to dismiss 
the material thoughts, and to be open to the Spirit. But 
this is not day-dreaming. By their fruits you can know 
the difference. Spiritual meditation takes no goodness 
from the work, but makes all bright and clean, while 
87 



SPIRITUAL 

idle day-dreaming is shown in the neglected and careless 
results. Special thought can be held for the good of the 
family appetites when washing dishes. One then can be 
cleansing away greed, intemperance and idolatry of food. 

No day should be given wholly over to material work 
from morning to night. Recreation is just as true activity 
as work, and Saturday is the day to remember planning 
some interesting entertainment, so that the day may 
demonstrate that divine unity of zealous accomplish- 
ment and merry-making that marks the graceful expres- 
sion of a happy life. 

Certain thoughts are working throughout the nation 
that will solve the servant question. One of them is a 
recognition of the necessity of making the kitchen, 
which is the most trying place in the house, a realm of 
peace and comfort to be respected by all. The loving 
heart and hand that makes the servant's room as pleas- 
ant as any in the house will never lack for efficient help. 
To the kitchen gravitates naturally the thoughts that are 
the by-products of the family life, and the wise mistress 
can often save a situation when her servant is at a height 
of irritation by a silent blessing and a helping hand of 
love. The Golden Rule is the best one to remember in 
connection with all that serve you. 

The word for Saturday is Perfection, that perfection 
88 



HOUSEKEEPING 

which is above the opposites of mortal sense, above the 
good and evil of human judgment, that holiness beyond 
the ethics of virtue and vice — that perfection which has 
not evolved, but has ever been and always will be per- 
fect, the same yesterday, to-day and forever. 

Fill up the measure with a sinless life of love, wholly 
blameless, sanctified even as Christ is sanctified. " Be 
ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." 
I am perfect, for my source is Perfection itself. 

" All things are now ready." " Enter ye into the joy 
of your Lord." Meet every unredeemed state with the 
declaration, " It is finished." Identify every form of good 
with its perfection in God. Uplift your whole world by 
the power of truth, and so finish the work which your 
Father has given you to do. 



CLOSING WORD 

nTBE vision of Truth is of one day, endless, all light, in which 
all expression is gloriously complete. Its creative method 
is blissful wishing that is perpetually gratified. The out- 
breathings and in-breathings of the Almighty Expressor are 
effortless and irresistible Love. 

The Realm of the inspired and inspiring Word is here, and 
you sit upon Its throne. The elements rush eagerly to serve 
You. You say, "Be!" and it is so. As toys in the hands of a 
babe, as skillful tools in the hands of an artisan, as magical 
words on the lips of the Christ, so do You use the omnipotent 
forces that bring all things to pass. With a touch You move 
what You will, with a look You command all things. The 
dream of toil has passed like a fleck of mist, and You are awake 
in the Christ-consciousness, Lord of All. 



CX2 



y 191& 



One copy del. to Cat. Div. 



